This patent relates to monitoring and communication systems and techniques, and more particularly to monitoring and communication systems and techniques for wind turbines.
Harvesting wind energy using wind turbines to supply electrical power is an increasing market. The efficiency and lifespan of wind turbines is dependent upon the conditions of the wind turbines, so there are many applications that use sensors mounted on wind turbine blades for condition monitoring. Wind turbine blade condition monitoring systems typically use wired communication between the sensors attached to wind blades and the controller which may or may not be located on the wind turbine. The controller detects the wind blade sensor readings, runs the required algorithms based on the needs of the specific applications, and then communicates the decision to a hub node of the wind turbine to take appropriate actions such as stopping the rotor, increasing/decreasing the blade rotation speed, etc. It is envisioned that communication between the sensors and the hub/controller can be wireless while the communication between the hub node and controller can be wired or wireless. However, the wireless communication paths between the various communication nodes of a wind turbine condition monitoring system can periodically be obstructed by structures of the wind turbine. For example, the tower may obstruct communication between a sensor on a turbine blade and a controller.
Condition monitoring of wind turbine blades can increase the lifetime of the blades and turbine by detecting abnormalities earlier and thereby enabling the taking of preventive actions earlier to avoid extensive damage to the blades and turbine. One of the various sensors that can be used for condition monitoring is an accelerometer sensor. Accelerometer sensors, when placed on an object, can be used to measure the vibration of that object. Accelerometers can also be used to determine the position of an object, for example the wind turbine blade positions.
It would be desirable to detect the positions of the wind turbine blades and use the position information to develop robust wireless communication schedules between blade sensors, hub nodes and controllers that meet desired communication parameters. These desired communication parameters can include for example, avoiding path obstruction and multiple transmission interference, and achieving reliability and power efficiency measures.